Saturday, March 18, 2017

2017 Australia Day Demo - A test of fitness.

Hard on the heels of the Victorian Country Athletics championships that finished yesterday, I travelled with out fire brigade teams to Maryborough for the Australia Day demo. I had not originally planned to attend, as I would normally have been representing the CFA at the Pride March in Melbourne instead. However, with Mark not interested in making the trip to Melbourne, and our C team short on runners, I changed plans to run the demo, which would give us 4 runners, and allow us to run most of the wet events (instead of none!). Because of the previous 2 days of intense competition, I wasn’t sure how I would handle the high workload.

My first event was the ladder race, as usual, as I don’t normally run the hydrant race which precedes it. I am considering giving the hydrant race a go in a couple of weeks, after the athletics shield final. Anyway, the ladder race was another tough draw, and I was a couple of tenths of a second slower than normal, most likely due to the previous competition.

Following the ladder race was the hose and ladder 5s. We ran a slightly changed team, as well as borrowing from our ranks of previous runners to make up the numbers. I had another good run, with a time of 25.12 seconds. As we were the only team, it was a win.

With our low numbers, I ran a couple of the marshalls. First of these was the 2 man marshall. Had one of my best runs for a long time here. Not good enough for a place, but very happy with it. My last dry event was the 4 man Y. Here, I ran coupling. Had a bit of a fumble putting the coupling on the hydrant. When I turned for the finish, I knew I had to put in a decent sprint to make the 20 or so metres to the finish line with my teammates, which I successfully did. We got 4th in this event, and even beat our A team. :)

Following the marshalls were the pumper events. In the pumper and ladder 5s, we had most of the team running in unfamiliar places. We managed to complete the run, but the time was slow. And in the pumper 4s, we had a miss, again with almost all of the team in an unfamiliar position.

The first of the reel events was next, with the C sections 4s. With 4 teams, competition was going to be a bit better than in the ladder 5s. However, we had a good run, easily winning the event. I ran in the pole.

The A team were also short a runner or two, so I was called upon to fill in for them in the hose and ladder 8s. I ran first assist, helping the first hose length to the branch line. Our run was good, resulting in a second place.

With our shortage of numbers and missing key people, we didn’t run the sixes. Next was the champion 4s. We ran the same positions as in the C section 4s. This time, there was to be a heat and a final. We won our heat, and in the final, ran 2 seconds faster than in the C section 4s. This was enough to get 4th place in this open event. Our day was finished, but…

The A team again needed me, this time, the Y8. I ran second branch, a position I am very familiar with. Had another good run, this time we won the event in a good time.

All that was left were the aggregate results and Australia Day medals. There were 5 aggregates - the C section, which we won, the wet aggregate, which the A team won. They also won the A/B aggregate and the grand aggregate. The only one neither team won (or even placed in) was the dry aggregate. In the Australia Day medal count, All 4 of our C team who competed won the C section medal for champion competitors in our class jointly, with each of us receiving one. Two of the A team received medals as champions of their division.

All in all, a very successful day. Despite my competition preceding the demo, I held up very well, and I still could have run more, if needed.

Some statistics - I ran a total of 16 events over the past 3 days, 10 of them today. This involved a total of 22 (including 6 long jump attempts and the heat and final of the champion 4s) runs of varying lengths. This was probably the highest number of sprint based races in 3 days I’ve ever done, certainly tougher than even the state championships, where I normally run between 6 and 10 events in the same period. Fitness is certainly good at the moment. :)